Well, what if he does this?’ That’s what (Sopranos creator) David Chase always did with Tony. Every time you began to forget Tony is
a psychopath or sociopath, he would do something to remind you: He is a killer.” Martin, whose book
is due out next Wednesday, calls groundbreaking series such as
Breaking Bad,
Mad Men,
The Shield,
The Sopranos and
The Wire the “Third Golden Age of Television.”

As obituaries for star James Gandolfini pointed out last week,
The Sopranos ushered in a renaissance of TV quality, inspiring producers to make heroes of
conflicted, awful men.

Since then, other shows have followed suit. Several of these anti-hero-starring series, though,
are winding down:

Breaking Bad, the story of a high-school teacher turned meth-dealing drug kingpin, will
end this summer on AMC. (The final eight episodes are to begin on Aug. 11.)

Dexter, the Showtime tale of a serial killer who preys on murderers, will begin its final
season on Sunday.

Mad Men, the AMC series about troubled advertising executive Don Draper, showed the last
episode in its penultimate season on Sunday.

Along with the death last week of Gandolfini, the impending finales suggest the end of an
era.Yet what do they say about viewers who root for anti-heroes no matter their sins?

In the early days, such characters seemed like a breath of fresh realism.

“These anti-heroes demand that the audience stop, listen and reflect on their own moral
judgments,” Tom Fontana, creator of the brutal prison drama
Oz (HBO), wrote by email.

Fontana’s latest show, the BBC America series
Copper, centers on an Irish immigrant cop working New York’s notorious Five Points slum
just after the Civil War. There, he faces crushing poverty and rampant corruption with resolve.

“The anti-hero lives by a code of ethics that is wholly his own, to which he remains absolutely
true,” Fontana said. “The world in which he lives is more corrupt than he is, but there are still
people he encounters who deserve a better life.”

In
Difficult Men, Martin quotes
The Sopranos’ Chase, who says an anti-hero needs to be only two things: good at his job
and the smartest guy in the room.

Some producers are pushing the envelope further. On
Dexter, Michael C. Hall’s killer of murderers Dexter Morgan watched his police-detective
sister kill a fellow officer to protect his secret.

Last year, Walter White of
Breaking Bad let an associate kill a child to cover up a crime.

Shawn Ryan, executive producer and creator of the FX cop drama
The Shield, sees a downside to incorporating such drama prematurely.

“You’re really endangering your show if you make the audience feel that way (too soon).”